Liberal Tim Pawlenty

In September 2009, President Barack Obama asked his fellow Americans to rise to the occasion and help pass national healthcare legislation. Said Obama of what he thought was an historic moment: “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard… I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test.”

Conservatives uniformly opposed what came to be known as ObamaCare, because they believed there are constitutional, financial and even moral limits to the functions and reach of government power. Conservatives understood that there were serious problems with healthcare costs, but rightly feared government intervention would only make those problems worse. Government must have limits, said conservatives, and ObamaCare was certainly outside of them.

In June 2011, former Minnesota Governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty asked his fellow Americans and his party to rise to the occasion and help support the growth of democracy throughout the Middle East, in Libya, Syria and beyond. Said Pawlenty of what he thought was an historic moment: “Now is not the time to retreat from freedom’s rise… We have been presented with a challenge as great as any we have faced in recent decades. And we must get it right. The question is, are we up to the challenge?”

Said Obama of the healthcare challenge: “Our collective failure to meet this challenge—year after year, decade after decade—has led us to the breaking point…” For Pawlenty, America’s challenge in the Middle East was also a long time coming: “For 60 years, Western nations excused and accommodated the lack of freedom in the Middle East. That could not last.”

Pawlenty’s faith in the power of activist government is no different from Obama’s and not surprisingly neither is his rhetoric. Every big government program ever rammed down America’s throat—from FDR’s New Deal to Obama’s raw ones—has always been packaged as some great “challenge” of epic proportions that we must confront with bravery, and so on. Such rhetoric has also been bipartisan.

War is the statism Republicans love—or at least they did for the last decade. Post-Bush, the GOP now shows significant skepticism toward Obama’s foreign policy overreach and wonders whether the same limits they seek for government at home should be applied abroad. This isn’t something new for the Right, but a return to first principles. Commenting on the 2012 Republican presidential field, columnist Peggy Noonan explains: “sometimes parties step away from themselves, stop being what they are. The Democrats are doing it now, in their soggy interventionism in Libya. So it’s especially good to see the Republicans start to return to themselves, to their essential nature as a party, which was invented to be genially sober… optimistic but not unrealistic… and accepting that life has limits and it’s not unpatriotic to say so.”

Pawlenty not only believes the power of government to be unlimited, but chastises those in his party who would dare think otherwise. Doing his Bush Republican best, Pawlenty said: “Parts of the Republican Party now seem to be trying to out-bid the Democrats in appealing to isolationist sentiments… (It) is wrong for the Republican Party to shrink from the challenges of American leadership in the world. History repeatedly warns us that in the long run, weakness in foreign policy costs us and our children much more than we’ll save in a budget line item.”

Added Pawlenty: “America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment, and withdrawal. It does not need a second one.”

Pawlenty’s patter is perfectly progressive. With a $14 trillion debt, polls showing two-thirds of the American people opposed to the US interventions in Libya and Afghanistan and a Democratic president who can’t give us any clear reasons for those wars—Pawlenty says we must proceed full speed ahead. Why? Because we are “America” and we “must.” What is our national interest? Our “values” are our interest. Can we bear the cost? Pawlenty asks can we afford not to? True to liberal form, he even suggests it’s “for the children.”

This sort of nonsense is exactly how the Left has sold every major big government program in the last century, including ObamaCare. If conservative Republicans wonder today why we have such massive debt, they need to look at Obama and his liberal party—and the equally liberal GOP of Republicans like Tim Pawlenty.

Conservatism requires recognizing practical limits. Pawlenty’s latest platform recognizes neither practicality nor limits, making it the equally destructive Republican mirror image of the Democrats’ domestic policy. Pawlenty calls conservatives who do seek to limit government “isolationist.” If its name-calling such Republicans want, then that’s what they should get: Tim Pawlenty is a liberal. Not by the definition of this writer, but by the traditional definition of that term. Conservatives limit government and liberals consider it unlimited. The former Minnesota governor has made it perfectly clear on which side of this divide he stands.

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14 Responses to Liberal Tim Pawlenty

The neoconservative Hypocrisy; the cry for small government, but “Don’t touch my Medicare,” and “The government needs to focus on (get me) Jobs,” Cut taxes, even though we have a war that eats up $729 million a day and deficit growing in the trillions! The country desperately needs a conservatism that is more intellectually sober and a Republican Party that is willing to engage in the country’s most pressing problems rather than partisanship. The neoconservatives, whose new ideas are not conservative and whose old ideas are the ones that destroyed the Bush GOP, are the very last Fox News pundits Republicans should pay any attention to.

I think Pawlenty will be a goner after Bachmann beats him in Iowa. Who is she listening to when it comes to foreign policy? Certainly, her Libya stance is a step in the right direction. If it comes down to her and Romney, which is more likely to keep us out of future wars?

The only candidate of either major party that will make a difference is Ron Paul. Ron Paul has been consistent in his Conservative/Libertarian views since he’s been in Congress. America needs dramatic,desperate and decisive change in the direction of the ship of state,otherwise we can kiss whats left of our Constitutional Republic and Liberties goodbye. All the rest of the Republican Party candidates are “me too Republicans,” conservative Socialists and NeoCon warmongers who,if elected would be same old same old puppets of the Elite who try to run America. Look at the candidates. Bachmann is an ex IRS prosecutor,what does that say of her credentials for Freedom and Liberty?, Pawlenty is a Republican Obama and Romney worked for Socialized medicine in Massachusetts. Nothing will change with these candidates. The Republican Party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan is long gone. Only Ron Paul can make a difference.

Re: Ron Paul. I can see myself voting for him in the primary, but let’s face it, the nominee will most likely be Romney or a Tea Party favorite such as Bachmann or Palin. Who is more likely to move in a non-interventionist direction?

The result of the presidential elections will also depend on the outcome of the Libyan war. That’s why I think some politicians are reluctant to bring it to a halt. The victory just before the election takes place would be a perfect means to obtain more support among voters.

Ron Paul is the only one in either party that will end this nonsense. We(they) just started bombing Somalia I guess. This is insanity.
I’m afraid Bachmann and/or Palin will just be cheerleaders for the Warhawks and generals. Either might be better than the last two president domestically I expect.

One Major Power in today’s world is Corporate Power. This is where the wealth and the freedom to move frequently come together. A large federal government can offer protections against the frequent corporate abuse of us all.

God knows, I wish we had an active, small business capitalism. Instead, there’s no capitalism, but corporate cronyism. There’s never been a free market; those in power (the mega corps) wouldn’t allow it.

Jack Hunter: Monday,July 04,2011
When Americans are asked to rise to the occasion,here and now,as they have,they are doing so in the name of the – future,and to meet history’s test?
Everything these “mentors” want us to do has historic significance – to them! “The question is,are we up to the challenge?” Of course we all know and understand who “we” refers to – you,maybe me too?
“Americans” national interest is a government with unlimited power while increasing the national debt beyond 14 trillion dollars, “for the children” – but,not him or his children!
Who then,is independent from whom?
Thank you –